Twice Lost

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The animal was shaped like a common dog; was of a reddish-brown colour, with a sharp muzzle, and ears short and erect, its tail pendent and bushy, and its eyes small and cunning.

We afterwards had a great deal of trouble with these dingos, which are clever creatures, hunting in packs, and committing fearful depredations on the flocks of the settlers. To preserve our meat, I hung it up on the bough of a small tree, at a height no dingo could reach; feeling very sure that otherwise it would be carried off during the night.

I had begun to be somewhat anxious at Mudge’s long absence, when at length I heard his voice, singing as he came along; and presently he climbed up to the plateau with both our bottles and the kettle he had taken with him full of water.

“We may consider the difficult part of our journey over, and be thankful,” he said, as he got up to me. “A stream flows down the side of the mountain, and instead of running towards the ocean, it takes, as far as I could see, a due southerly course; so that we may travel along its banks, and be sure not only of water, but of plenty of birds, which are certain to frequent the locality during the morning and evening.”

This was good news; and the ample supply of meat we enjoyed restored our strength and raised our spirits. We washed it down with I don’t know how many cups of tea; which, though we had no milk, was not the less enjoyable. To prevent any dingos from unpleasantly smelling at us during the night, we fixed a number of sticks into the ground around our sleeping-place, and before turning in made up as large a fire as we could find fuel for. Its warmth, at that altitude, was pleasant, if not absolutely necessary.

We had a capital breakfast the next morning off some more of the rock kangaroo, and then packed up the more delicate portions to carry with us. “Forward!” cried Mudge; and setting our faces down the valley, we continued our course. We had still some hundred feet to descend, and even then we were not on a level plain, as, when looking from the mountain, we had supposed the country below us to be. The river on our left went rushing and foaming onwards, showing that the descent it was about to make was still considerable.

We were not disappointed in our expectations of finding abundance of game as we travelled on by the side of the river, for three days or more; after which it turned towards the eastward on its course to the ocean.

After this we proceeded southward, crossing several rivers and numerous streams. Most of the latter were fordable. We passed over the rivers in canoes, such as I have before described. For a considerable distance we had a lofty range of mountains on our right; and we had to make our way over some of the smaller ranges, but with much less difficulty than over the first we had crossed.

Perseveringly we trudged onwards, over table-lands and wide-extending plains and across valleys. All these rivers, streams, mountains, hills, plains, table-lands, and valleys have long since been named and thoroughly explored; while towns and villages have sprung up on the banks of the rivers, numerous flocks and herds are pastured on the plains and downs, and thousands of industrious settlers people the country. But in those days the black man, the kangaroo, the emu, and the dingo ranged in unrestrained freedom over the land. If names there were, they were such only as were given by the aboriginal inhabitants to the regions they claimed as their own.

We frequently met with natives; but as we were always on our guard, and avoided giving them offence, we were never annoyed by them. We fell in with most of them while we were on the march, so that we proceeded onwards and saw them no more; while the few who on rare occasions visited us at our camp in the evening, were always friendly. When we killed a kangaroo or emu, we gave as much of the meat as we could spare to any of the black men who were near; and we always found that food was the most acceptable gift we could bestow.